Proposal for a Vietnamese landscape #2: Doc Lap Tu Do, Gil, Toc Luon Vao Nep (Independence and freedom, Gil, your hair back into place) 2006

Tuấn Andrew Nguyễn is an artist and filmmaker whose work addresses specific cultural, political and historical contexts. The ‘Proposal for a Vietnamese landscape’ series is a collaboration that began when Nguyễn started to work with cinematographer Phù Nam Thúc Hà to document the growing graffiti scene in Ho Chi Minh City and its ever-changing urban landscape. The paintings comment on the abundance of visual information that is fast filling city walls and public spaces in Vietnam, where officially sanctioned propaganda murals sit side by side with consumer advertising, stencilling and graffiti. As Nguyễn has said, the paintings in this series represent a ‘socialist and capitalist urban utopia’, which explores ‘how signage, both propaganda and advertising, resemble each other in such remarkable and uncanny ways’. Through these paintings, Nguyễn explores the tensions between competing ideological and aesthetic worlds in Vietnam today.